D-Link ShareCenter DNS-327L

D-Link joins the personal cloud space in its NAS box range

Not everyone wants the fastest NAS box or a massively flexible platform. Often they just want somewhere to store and globally access their files that isn't owned by Google, Microsoft or Dropbox.

D-Link's ShareCenter DNS-3271 is a revamped version of its incredibly cheap dual drive DNS-320L NAS box (now £39.99), whith brings personal cloud functionality to the table for an amazingly low price, if you provide your own drives.

Pillars Of Eternity

It's old-school RPG action all the way with Obsidian's crowdfunded fantasy adventure

For many PC gamers, the golden age of the RPG lay with the Infinity Engine-powered greats like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and the superb Planescape: Torment. The point-and-dick era of RPGs of this kind gave us these classics, and many more, and produced some of the most beloved entries in the genre. These were games that possessed huge quests, deep stories, great characters and a lot of tactical combat. RPGs have evolved over time, and today we rarely see such complex and rewarding releases. Pillars Of Eternity is here to change that.

The New MacBook: A Guide for Beginners

1. Amazing Design

The new MacBook was designed with power in mind while keeping the unit small and compact. Apple set out to make the unit thinner and better than the previous notebooks. What they ended up with is the flagship of the industry.

2. Keyboard

The keyboard is one of the design approaches that was upgraded. It is still a full size keyboard that uses half of the space. This is essential to user friendliness and Apple has achieved this construction.

3. Improved Display

The display has been redesigned with an edge to edge glass that brings the display into sharp focus. When viewing the screen, the content is rich and vibrant with vivid details. It contains over 3 million pixels that render the content with crystal clarity with energy efficiency to top it all off.

Things to do with an old XP PC. Install Linux

In the first of a new series on how you can breathe new life into your old XP PC, Jonathan Parkyn shows you how to install a Linux operating system

When Microsoft withdrew support for Windows XP last year, millions of us faced a pretty stark choice. Carry on using XP and risk malware, try installing Windows 7 or 8/8.1, or fork out for a new computer.

Now, one year after we examined these choices in some detail, the dilemma has become even more pressing. Even if you managed to upgrade Windows, you’ll know that your trusty old machine may be nearing the end of the line - especially if you plan to move on to Windows 10 when it gets its full release later this year.

Shut down your PC faster & safer

Slow shutdowns can be just as frustrating as slow boot times. Jonathan Parkyn explains how to make your PC shut down quickly and safely every time

When we talk about speeding up a slow computer, the focus is often on making it start up faster. But what about shutting down? A PC that hangs for ages when you’re trying to turn it off, or that throws up alarming error messages whenever you click the ‘Shut down’ button, can be just as frustrating as one that takes an eternity to boot.

There are many possible explanations for a computer that finds it difficult to switch off - troublesome drivers, background processes, hidden spyware and other pests. Like a lot of PC troubleshooting, the key to success is to employ a process of elimination that will reveal the cause of the problem and a means to fix it.

Here, we’ll outline the main underlying problems that cause this type of behaviour, then show you how to fix them and banish slow shutdowns forever.

Remove Hidden Malware

Malware has learned how to sneak past your antivirus and hide in your computer. Jane Hoskyn shows you how to weed out these silent killers

There is probably malware in your PC. You can’t see it, you can’t hear it and you can’t smell it, but chances are it’s there.

The latest annual Kaspersky Security Bulletin says 38 per cent of Kaspersky users’ PCs were hit by “at least one” malware attack in 2014. We reckon that figure is pretty conservative. After all, those users were running products that consistently top the antivirus (AV) tests run by our security team at Dennis Technology Labs (DTL, www.dennistechnologylabs.com). Many people run much less powerful AV software, and some don’t run any at all.

Samsung UE40H5500

Great picture quality and all the TV apps you'll ever need

The UE40H5500 looks far more unassuming than the rest of Samsung’s TVs due to its plain, unadorned stand. But while it isn’t as glitzy looking as Samsung’s more expensive TVs, its picture quality is impressive.

Both brightness and contrast were excellent in our test, so we could easily make out details in dark scenes in films and TV shows. The only flaws we could see in its colour accuracy were overly strong blues and magentas. We managed to compensate for this, though, by fiddling with the picture-quality settings. The only setting we’d recommend you avoid using is ‘motion lighting’. This attempts to save energy by automatically adjusting the brightness depending on what’s on screen, but this negatively affected contrast levels, making it more difficult to see what was going on in dark scenes.